A Hiker Collapsed at the Bottom of the Grand Canyon, the Helicopter Was Grounded by Wind, and the Only Way Out Was Seven Miles Straight Up on the Back of a Mule Nobody Else Could Ride

We left Phantom Ranch at 9:40 p.m.

Gerald was strapped into a padded saddle on Delilah’s back with a ratchet harness, an oxygen bottle clipped to the horn, and a blanket around his shoulders. The ranger walked beside him with a pulse oximeter and a radio. Ellen walked behind.

I led Delilah on foot.

The Bright Angel Trail climbs four thousand four hundred feet in nine and a half miles. In daylight, healthy, it’s a hard day.

We did it in the dark, with headlamps, in the wind.

At the first big switchbacks, Delilah stopped dead.

She does that. She stops, she thinks, and if you pull, she sits down. I’ve seen her sit down on a trail with two hundred pounds of mail on her back and refuse to get up for forty minutes.

I didn’t pull.

I put my hand on her neck.

“I know,” I said. “I know it’s dark. I know it’s late. This man’s wife wanted to ride you. Let’s take him home.”

She sighed.

And walked.

At Indian Garden, halfway up, Gerald’s oxygen saturation dropped. The ranger swapped bottles. Ellen held her father’s hand and talked to him about the Brewers, his favorite baseball team, for an hour, while the wind howled through the cottonwoods.

At three in the morning, above the Three-Mile Rest House, a rock gave way under Delilah’s front foot.

She stumbled.

Gerald slid in the harness. The ranger grabbed for the saddle. Ellen screamed.

And Delilah did something I have never seen a mule do in thirty years.

She dropped her back end low, all her weight to the inside of the trail, toward the wall, away from the drop, and held there. Shaking. Perfectly still. Like a dog protecting a child.

We got Gerald steady.

I looked at Delilah.

She looked at me.

“Okay,” I said, and my voice didn’t work right. “Okay, girl. Okay.”